Symposium: Talking about Race and Whiteness in Crash

Teaching films like Crash gives teachers and researchers the opportunity to discuss films as social texts that engage students in critical thinking and self-reflection. This particular movie is especially effective in its use of a pulp-fiction visual rhetoric. Unfortunately, the film equates and replaces the term “race” with the term “prejudice” and then argues that everyone is a little prejudiced. The result is a missed opportunity to investigate whiteness as a powerful social construction.